(Too Tired to Finish Letters Column Bonus Entry) The Saint of Mirrors

Posted on April 1, 2005 by Jenna

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There’s a new factory in Respite. It’s the SINFUL TAFFY factory.

People line up on the very first day. They want to go in and see what sinful taffy is all about.

“We make taffy,” explains the tour guide. “That sins!”

“I see,” murmurs Burke to Meredith.

“I see!” confirms Meredith to Burke.

The main attraction is, of course, the Gallery of Shame. People point and laugh at the shameful sinful taffy. It’s gluttonous and wrathful and lusty and envious. But it doesn’t think it’s bad taffy. It’s the pridefullest taffy in the world.

“Hypocrites!” rails the prideful taffy at the people who point and laugh and pull it. “Turn your attention to the beams in your own eyes before you mock the mote in mine!”

People only beam more. “It’s so realistic!” they say. “That’s just what prideful people say to us!”

They point and laugh and pull even harder.

Then there’s usury taffy. Usury taffy loans money at exorbitant interest rates. People who don’t like pointing at the prideful taffy often enjoy borrowing money from the usury taffy.

Then there’s Sid.

Sid isn’t interested in the Gallery of Shame. He’s not up for usury taffy, either. He makes a beeline right for the simony taffy. It’s taffy, that sells ecclesiastical offices for profit.

“Hello,” he says to the taffy.

“Hello,” oozes the simony taffy. “Would you like to buy a bishopric?”

“I want to be a saint,” says Sid.

The taffy stretches in a perplexed fashion. “Sainthood is an awful trouble.”

“I want to be the saint of mirrors,” says Sid. “And show people what they really are. So that I won’t have to hear my upstairs neighbor crying all night.”

The simony taffy hesitates. Most upstairs neighbor jobs are handled by the hit man taffy. (It’s taffy, that kills people for money. It also spits chewing tobacco. It’s dirty, dirty taffy.) But the simony taffy cannot resist a chance to commit simony.

“All right,” it says. “$500.”

So Sid throws money at the taffy, and goes out into the world, and he shows people what they really are.